New entrant Finx acquires seasoned CIEL

With the aim of spreading financial education among college students and at the same time equipping the existing sales force in the financial services industry, FinX has acquired a majority stake in Centre of Investment Education and Learning (CIEL). Himanshu Vyapak, former deputy chief executive officer at Nippon India Mutual Fund owns and heads AV Financial Expert Network, which owns FinX. CIEL was founded in 2007 by Uma Shashikant, a well-known trainer in the financial services space and a mutual funds industry expert. FinX will now own 51 per cent of CIEL; the latter will continue as a stand-alone subsidiary of FinX.

Increasing financial literacy

When Himanshu founded FinX in early 2019, his aim was to impart financial education to school and college students. Financial literacy has not been a formal part of the Indian education system. It is, at best, a vocational subject that is largely voluntary and offered sparsely. In other words, students are free to opt for or avoid what Himanshu states as, “the academic way of teaching students what money is all about on the one side and what the (financial services) industry wants out of its employees, on the other side.” At the other end was CIEL, which specialises in up-skilling and training existing officials – typically the sales and marketing personnel – of the banking and finance industries.

FinX has tied up with five colleges so far in Mumbai and has started offering a six-month course in money management that aims to teach students about various financial products across savings and investments through a certification course. This course comprises three months of classroom (including webinars) training followed by three months’ internship with various financial institutions such as banks, insurance companies and mutual funds that FinX has tied up with. If the candidate does well, the firm offers him or her a job. This course is offered to third-year students or those students that have just finished graduation from any of these five colleges.

Himanshu says that CIEL will continue to focus on the existing employees of mutual fund houses, banks,brokers,wealth management firms and insurance companies – industries where it has been running training sessions for more than 10 years. CIEL is also one of the few firms accredited by the National Institute of Securities Market and the capital market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to conduct examinations meant for a SEBI-Registered Investment Advisor qualification. Uma was also on the examination committee of the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) exam when it first came to India.

In other words, the acquisition aims to help students aspiring for careers in the financial services industry with the right skills. Firms too would get to recruit persons who very well understand the products that they sell.